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Days of Our Lives

The TV tastes of today's daytime audience are far different
and more discriminating than those of the traditional
crowd.

More men are choosing to stay at home during the day with
their families. But TV programmers have yet to notice.

Sheryl B. Wiblin makes an appointment to see Dr. Phil every
Tuesday at 4 p.m. The 38-year-old Wiblin isn't sick. Rather, she's
hooked on the relationship advice that the â€œlife
strategistâ€? prescribes during his weekly visit to Oprah. As a
freelance media publicist who works from home in Sherman Oaks,
California, Wiblin determines her own work hours, making sure she's
free for Dr. Phil's diagnosis, and for her daily dose of
Regis, CNN, and CNBC's Power Lunch. Wiblin says
that her daytime television viewing has actually doubled in the
past three years, ironically thanks to the Internet. â€œThe
Internet is something I use because I have to, for business,â€?
she says. â€œBut when you work at home you are so isolated. TV
has become my way of feeling connected to the outside
world.â€?

Chances are the undying and ever-increasing number of soap
operas, court, talk, and game shows that have been the staple of
daytime TV for years aren't going anywhere. The bulk of daytime TV
viewers, and the primary audience for these kinds of shows, has
remained the same for decades â€” stay-at-home moms, retired
seniors, students, and those who are injured or unemployed. In the
past few years, however, increased technology, more flexible work
arrangements, and shifting gender roles have made more young,
educated, and wealthy consumers of both sexes available to join
this group during the day. As a result, the overall composition of
the daytime TV audience is slowly and subtly beginning to
change.

Some may argue that working from home and watching television
are incompatible activities, and yet actions speak louder: 43
percent of women and 19 percent of men who currently work from home
watch at least some daytime television, as do 34 percent of all
part-time workers, according to an American Demographics'
analysis of data from Simmons Market Research Bureau. But what,
how, and how much this group watches is vastly different from the
traditional daytime audience. As home-based and flex-time workplace
trends continue, there may be an opportunity for TV programmers and
advertisers to reach an even larger chunk of this more lucrative,
prime-time-like audience during the daylight hours.

More people are finding and taking opportunities to blur the
differences between their work and home lives. The percentage of
wage and salary workers with flexible schedules jumped from 15
percent in 1991 to 28 percent in 1997, according to the latest
available data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. And the number
of people who telework â€” or do work from someplace other than
a traditional office â€” is expected to reach 30 million by
2004, up from 23.6 million today, according to the International
Telework Association & Council (ITAC). What's more, home-based
teleworkers are a particularly attractive demographic, with median
average incomes in the lower $50,000 range, compared with the lower
$30,000 range for non-teleworkers, and 82 percent of them have at
least some college education, compared with 60 percent of those
with traditional work arrangements.

The vast majority of home-based teleworkers (85 percent) spend
at least some time working during hours that do not fall within the
traditional 9-to-5 shift, thus leaving many of them with a little
more free time at home during the day than average suit-and-tie
employees. It appears that some of these teleworkers are spending
that time sneaking a peek at the tube, as the overall composition
of the daytime TV viewing audience seems to be shifting slightly
more upscale, according to an analysis of average daytime Nielsen
ratings by Twentieth Television, a division of FOX Corporation.
Perhaps most interesting is the growth in the proportion of adult
male viewers making up the daytime TV audience. According to
Twentieth Television's analysis, 25 percent more men with some
college, and 27 percent more men with household incomes of $50,000
or more, watched daytime TV in the fourth quarter of 2000 than in
1995.

The TV tastes of the new daytimers are far different from and
more discriminating than those of the traditional crowd, however.
For instance, while about 35 percent of all homemakers watch a
daytime soap opera at least once a week, only 22 percent of people
who work at home do, according to Simmons. Not finding what they
crave on regular broadcast stations, many daytimers have turned
their sights to cable. Forty-year-old Sari Fremont, for one, is a
fan of Lifetime and of The Learning Channel's series of reality
shows: A Baby Story, A Wedding Story, and A Dating
Story, which chronicle the lives of real people during their
most intimate moments. Fremont, a social worker and mother of two,
runs a private practice out of her home in Haworth, New Jersey, and
says that she's too busy most days to watch television. But when
she does, she tries to select TV programs that give her some piece
of knowledge or bit of advice, â€œsomething I can take into my
pocketbook with me.â€?

THE DAYTIME DIVIDE

About 7 percent of men who work from home watch MSNBC during
the day (10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday) for at least a
half an hour.

Most watched cable channels during the day:

Work-at-Home Men
Index* (% who watch)

Work-at-Home Women
Index* (% who watch)

Homemakers
Index* (% who watch)

ESPN Classic

257

(2.2%)

Inspirational Network

354

(2.0%)

Nickelodeon

249

(12.7%)

CSPN

212

(2.6%)

Game show Network

228

(3.6%)

Disney Channel

220

(8.5%)

MSNBC

201

(7.0%)

Travel Channel

207

(3.4%)

HGTV

215

(7.7%)

FX

199

(4.5%)

Nickelodeon

192

(9.8%)

Learning Channel

207

(8.7%)

FOX News Channel

191

(5.5%)

E!

185

(4.1%)

Lifetime

198

(11.9%)

TV Land

172

(3.0%)

Disney Channel

174

(6.7%)

Food Network

184

(3.8%)

CNBC

166

(6.1%)

Lifetime

171

(10.3%)

FOX Family Channel

169

(6.6%)

ESPN

2

164

(4.0%)

HGTV

168

(6.0%)

Arts & Entertainment

152

(7.2%)

ESPN

156

(7.2%)

The Learning Channel

167

(7.0%)

Weather Channel

143

(12.0%)

Food Network

151

(3.1%)

CNN

130

(7.8%)

The Discovery Channel

133

(6.5%)

Any daytime

TV

63

(19%)

Any daytime

TV

143

(43%)

Any daytime

TV

182

(54%)

*An index of 100 is the national
average. For example, work-at-home men are 101% more likely to
watch MSNBC than the average American.

Source: Simmons Market Research
Bureau

In fact, just 29 percent of all women working at home or
part-time say that current daytime television offerings are at all
relevant to their lives, compared with 35 percent of homemakers or
nonworking women who say so, according to Encino, California-based
e-Poll. Elizabeth Cox, 28, started teleworking from home about a
year ago, working for Outlook Marketing Services, a public
relations and marketing agency in Chicago, and while she'd like to
watch TV on her breaks, and has the time, she's all but given up on
finding something she considers worthwhile. â€œThe shows that
are on now either talk down to you or are about some random teenage
abuse story which doesn't at all relate to my life,â€? says
Cox. â€œWith so many more people at home now, it just doesn't
make sense that there's not more prime-time-like programming on
during the day.â€?

Actually, it makes perfect sense, according to David Poltrack,
CBS's executive vice president of research and planning. While he
acknowledges the demographic shift of the at-home audience, and
anticipates that advertisers will find daytimers a little more
attractive in future years, he doesn't expect the trend to
drastically affect network or syndicated programming. TV is, after
all, a numbers game. â€œSure, we'd love to [create original
ER-quality programming during the day], but for $9 million
per episode, that's not going to happen. Because even if the
available audience is changing in education, age, and socioeconomic
status, it is still not a large enough group, in terms of sheer
numbers, to put that much money into.â€?

MARKET WATCH

In 2000, 43 percent of daytime television viewers had some
college or more, up from 31 percent in 1990.

Selected demographics of daytime TV
watchers:

2000

1990

EDUCATION

Some college or more

43%

31%

High school or less

58%

70%

HOUSEHOLD INCOME

$75,000 or more

24%

7%

$50,000-$74,999

18%

11%

$25,000-$49,999

28%

31%

Under $25,000

30%

52%

Note: Columns may not add to 100% due
to rounding

Source: Simmons Market Research
Bureau

Thus, the changing demographics of daytime viewers are more
likely to influence cable programming, especially on the news and
business channels, says Dan Wilch, vice president of entertainment
at the New York City offices of research and consulting firm Frank
N. Magid Associates. Wilch recently conducted focus groups for an
unnamed financial network, talking specifically with at-home
workers, and found that many do keep such stations on in the
background throughout the day. And while that time may not be 100
percent attentive viewing, it is certainly more time with the
medium than they had as 9-to-5ers. For context, Wilch points out
that only about 15 percent to 35 percent of homemakers â€” who
have a false reputation for sitting on the couch with their eyes
glued to the TV all day â€” are giving daytime programming
their full attention. And yet that certainly hasn't stopped
advertisers from going after them.

Some cable stations are slowly starting to go with the emerging
flow. Fox News Channel, for instance, with programs like Your
World with Neil Cavuto, attempts to reach beyond the Wall
Street crowd. â€œThe same group of people who tune in to
Oprah are now following the stock market and are just as
hungry for accurate market information as stockbrokers in
pin-striped suits,â€? says Cavuto, vice president, anchor, and
managing editor of business news at the cable station.

TV programmers may also find an opportunity in leveraging
at-home workers' high level of Internet use. According to a recent
study by Westfield, New Jersey-based Statistical Research Inc., 18
percent of broadband users â€œdouble-clickâ€? â€” use
the TV and PC simultaneously â€” sometime during the daytime
hours on an average day, compared with 8.4 percent of all Internet
users. And over 19 percent of all Internet users say they've
watched a TV program as a direct result of something they saw or
read online. Now consider this: The average teleworker has two PCs
and 2.6 TVs, they spend 55 percent of their work time using the
computer, and almost 25 percent of them have broadband access
(compared with about 7 percent of all Internet users in the
U.S.).

There may also be the potential to widen the overall audience
for daytime television by providing better- quality content aimed
at specific and growing pockets of the at-home viewership. Thanks
to shifting gender roles, for example, there are more men choosing
to stay at home during the day with their families. Take
33-year-old Dave Williams, who, in order to spend more time with
his newborn daughter, traded in the long hours and commute of a
more traditional job last year for â€œhome work,â€?
launching a skate and surf clothing company, Dragonfish, from his
Newport Beach, California home. Williams says he'd love to veg out
in front of the tube during breaks, but he rarely does.
â€œThere's just nothing decent on daytime TV for guys,â€?
he says. â€œSure, there's ESPN, but they always seem to have
something inane on during the day like the National Lumberjack
Championships. They obviously think there is no one out there
watching.â€?

HOME ALONE

Last year, almost 10 percent of 25- to 54-year-old men
watched daytime television at home between the hours of 10 a.m. and
4:30 p.m., up from 8.7 percent in 1992.

Obviously. For advertisers and media buyers, the business of
daytime TV is still business as usual. Procter & Gamble and
Johnson & Johnson still spend the most dough in the daypart,
pushing their cleaning fluids and baby shampoo. It is likely to be
a while before we start regularly seeing commercials for home
office supplies or beer on daytime TV. â€œThere has to be some
really specific numbers about whether or not these new at-home
people are really worth targeting,â€? says Steven Neiman, CEO
of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania-based advertising and media buying
agency The Neiman Group. â€œRight now, we think we know that
there are more stay-at-home dads and stay-at-home workers, but do
we really know what they are doing there, in terms of media use?
Even if the TV is on, are they really paying attention? We don't
know yet. And there's just too much money involved to make an
educated guess.â€? In the TV biz, what you don't know can hurt
you.